Healing Arts Report

Practices for an Evolving Life

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They Don't Tell You How

“You need to love yourself more.” “You shouldn’t feel that way.” “Always put other people first. Don’t be selfish.” The one thing that is missing from all this good advice is telling you HOW to do it. We introduce you to practical tools using your own character traits to support you in creating practical answers to those questions. Read more here.

Books

Two memoirs tell about times of extreme personal growth in the author’s life. Sunny Side Up is a window into the early 70s when certain young adults were searching for a way to head off society’s path bent on materialism. The Transparent Feather tells of a dying author passing the torch of writing to her new friend cum student.

Nature And Nurture

I had a client who at times mentioned wanting to die. This was a person whose attitude toward the possibility of viewing his life differently reminds me most of my young self. Every barrier looked immovable to me. The word ‘challenge’ meant ‘impossible.’ Our family outlook was pessimistic, but also rooted in a history that was never discussed.

I could understand easily how an attitude like this could develop, but recently I’ve read a book called The Ancestor Syndrome which discusses the transmission of unspoken and sometimes even unknown family secrets.

Dr. Leyden teaching Rwandan genocide survivors

What engrossed me about the book I read was the author’s statement that once individuals learned about the secret or patterns of events through research, they became free of a psychological pull that had previously been exerting itself on them.

When I later learned of the suicide of an older relative, I felt strangely affirmed in my own struggles with depression in my teens. It was as if I’d always considered suicide a reasonable option and, because of that belief, the effort needed to evade it was intensified.

Students learning EFT tapping

In cases discussed in the book, patterns were repeated in one generation after another, even when the event was unknown to later generations. The types of events were most often accidents or illnesses, birthdays, or marriages that happen at a certain age or near a specific date. Science cannot yet explain the mechanics of transmission and yet the patterns discovered by transgenerational psychotherapists seem too common to be merely coincidental.

All this brought up two issues for me. The first is the unbounded damage that genocide or slavery creates. The results of trauma do not end with the generation who experiences it. That has been observed.

The second is that epigenetics, the new science that allows for both nature and nurture to work together means that we are not locked into genetic constraints.

After a detailed discussion with a client contemplating suicide, when there is as best we can determine, no longer immediate danger, I introduce epigenetics because many people won’t consider an idea that is new to them without the science. Then we talk about searching for inspiring stories. I suggest that we find people who have gone through what they have experienced or worse and learn how they healed.

And third (hah, slipped in an extra one on you), I often introduce Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) because I’ve never seen old traumas healed so effectively as they are with tapping.

To demonstrate just how powerful tapping can be I refer the reader to Dr. Lori Leyden who created Project Light in Rwanda. For an eight-and-a-half-minute description of how the inspiring Project is working, click here.

Rwandans teach other survivors

Dr. Leyden created Project Light in Rwanda to heal “orphan genocide survivors, aged 16 to 25, live with physical and emotional scars of gruesome memories, mutilation, disease, poverty and little hope for the future.” Volunteers have trained over 550 genocide survivors who in turn have trained hundreds more in the tapping techniques. In the first year the orphans experienced a 90% reduction in trauma outbreaks through practicing EFT.

Imagine the template being created in our world for achieving inner peace and healing by these youngsters and their profound work to recover, forgive, and create hope for themselves and others.

PRACTICES. Are there stories in your family or culture that have haunted you? Look at your family and cultural history and see what parts of it resonate.

Contact. Email me for a free phone consultation. I can help you find resources for learning more about your family history. You can ask about how family or cultural history may be affecting you. I can also teach you ways to use tapping to heal wounds you already know about or may suspect.

Discussion

One Response to “Nature And Nurture”

BJ, This is such an incredible post. I love the social research and the neurological research teamed with what you can offer us and the story of your client you told that so many of us can relate to. Thank you!